Cable housing
 

A rookie question here. I'm replacing the cabling on the bike. I bought new cable housing. The bike shop sold me 5mm shifter housing. When I got home, I realized that I wasn't sure which housing was brake which was shifter.

Is the brake housing spiral wrap & shift housing longitudinal strands?

Also, I have a pair of housing cutters. It seems really difficult to cut the non-spiral housing (it just crushes - I have to chew through it). Is there a trick? Should I use a Dremel tool with a cutoff disk?

you have it right
 

Brake is spiral and more flexible.if your cutters struggle with the derailleur housing,you can use a Dremel.

My basic Park cutters go right through either one,but the der is tougher.

dan

As is often times the case, Sheldon provides a concise outline of some good techniques:
http://sheldonbrown.com/cables.html#cutting

I use bicycle cable cutters followed by a short 'kiss' against the bench grinder: it's rather fool proof. Second best would be cutters and a flat file. I've tried the Dremmel and just found the "snip" and "kiss" or a few pulls of the file to be more efficient.

Thanks for the tips!

My cable cutters were old & dull. I bought some new Pedro's cutters & they work much better. I don't have a bench grinder so I used a flat file to remove the section of spiral housing crushed by the cutter.